I’ll be making the queerest, gayest, most simping character fighting for marginalized people(my kind of power fantasy) ever. How that looks like in specifics? No idea, I will probably take 2h or more in character creation figuring out who they are/what they look like :D
5th edition D&D is a lot easier to get the hang of than earlier editions, and IMO the game does a decent job tutorializing its systems. FYI when you mouse over something you can press T to “stick” it on screen and then mouse over any bold/colored words in the description to get an explanation of those things as well. Really nice quality of life feature.
As for the characters, you can pick whatever you want but be aware most of them can be in your game anyway as companion characters, and I believe you still need to make build choices for them (if past Larian games are anything to go by). Most stuff is pretty self-explanatory if you read the descriptions, e.g. if you mouse over your dexterity score it will say it increases your effectiveness with finesse weapons, and if you mouse over a dagger you’ll see it labeled “Finesse” near the bottom. If you don’t want to deal with any of it you can just google like “BG3 [class] build guide” or something and find a ton of guides, I’m sure.
System-wise it has been okay, I have always been a fan of games that do those context-tooltips, CK3 did it really well too. I haven’t fully grasped the resting mechanics properly, I think I am being far too stingy about using them. I have enough supplies to do like 12x long rests, but have only done it once. Which has resulted in me being very careful about every use any magic that isn’t a cantrip. I still have my JRPG habits of being extremely stingy about item use, so I haven’t used any potions/poisons/magical items really.
I actually ended up with a custom character, after reading around some online it seems to be kind of an ideal first playthrough as you get to see all the story characters from an outsider perspective without knowing any internal motivations. Hopefully I didn’t mess up my character too much, but it’s seemed to work out so far. I got a helm quite early on that set my lowest stat to 17 automatically, which has seemed very good. I have a bonus to almost all skill checks now.
Yeah as long as you’re exploring, the game throws camping supplies at you so you can rest a bit more than you think. Also resting is how you see a lot of story cutscenes with your party so it’s a good idea to rest every once in a while and talk to your party members.
I have the same problem with hoarding items/spells (probably from playing old RPGs where you needed every advantage you could get) but recently I’ve just forced myself to use them if I need to and it usually works out fine.